Largely overlooked amid the furor caused by Pope Francis’ rash claim
that “the great part of our sacramental marriages are null”—an
assertion reckless if false (which it is) and brimming with despair if
true (which it is not), a claim followed not by an apology, an official
retraction, or even a bureaucratic ‘clarification’ but instead by an Orwellian alteration of the pope’s words
in Vatican records—overlooked, I say, in this greater mess was the
pope’s later but equally problematic comment about his being “sure that
cohabitating couples are in a true marriage having the grace of
marriage”. Though multi-facetedly wrong (theologically, canonically,
pastorally, socially) the pope’s equating cohabitation (‘faithful’,
whatever that means) with Christian marriage did not, mirabile dictu, get edited down to a platitude or deleted completely: his words are still there, “in queste convivenze … sono sicuro che questo è un matrimonio vero, hanno la grazia del matrimonio…”

Let’s be clear: marriage is marriage
but cohabitation (as that word is nearly universally understood in
social discourse) is only cohabitation. Where to begin?Everybody starts off single. One stays single unless one goes through a ceremony called a wedding,
at which point, one is (presumptively, at least) married. People who
are married get to do certain things that people who are not married
don’t get to do, like, say, submit a married-filing-jointly tax return
with a certain someone and have sex with that same certain someone if
they both so choose. In addition, though, married couples who are
baptized get something else at their wedding, they receive a sacrament
called Matrimony, and with that sacrament come very powerful
graces put there by Jesus to help Christian couples living the difficult
and wonderful thing called marriage.But, if one is not married, one does not get to submit a married-filing-jointly tax return with anyone and one does not
get to have sex with a certain no-one or with anyone else. Moreover,
even if one is baptized (and regardless of what other sacramental or
actual graces might be wonderfully at work in one’s life) a single
person does not get the specific graces of Matrimony. Why?
Because cohabitation is NOT marriage, let alone is it “true marriage”,
and cohabiting couples do NOT share in the graces of Matrimony.

Point Two. Civil-only marriage might, or might not, be marriage.

While asserting that couples cohabiting
‘faithfully’ (?) are in a real marriage (which they aren’t) the pope
also said that merely civilly-married couples are in real marriages
(which they might or might not be). To understand what is at stake here
we need to distinguish more carefully.

Couples, neither of whom is Catholic (i.e., most of the world), even if both of them are baptized, can
marry (the Church would say, “validly”) in a civil-only ceremony. To
that extent, Francis would be right to say that civilly married couples
have a true marriage. But if the pope thinks that merely civilly married
Catholics—and given the context of his remarks this is likely
whom he had in mind—are, just as much as cohabiting couples (supposedly)
are, in real marriages and enjoying the graces of Matrimony, then I
have to say No, that’s wrong—even though I wish he were right. Once
again, the requirement of “canonical form”
(a cure that has long out-lived the disease it was prescribed to treat)
seriously complicates the Church’s message on the permanence of
marriage.Because Catholics (let’s just talk Romans here) are required for validity
to marry in (still keepin’ it simple) a Catholic religious ceremony,
those tens of thousands of Catholics who ‘marry’ civilly-only are
(outside a few rare exceptions) no more married than are couples just
cohabiting (‘faithfully’ or otherwise). Moreover, because of the
inseparability of the marriage contract from the sacrament,
if one is invalidly ‘married’ (and ‘marriages’ among Catholics who
disregard canonical form are invalid) then one does not receive the
sacrament of Matrimony either nor any of its graces. Why? Because, No
marriage means no Matrimony.

In short, if the pope had in mind non-Catholics,
he would be right to say that their civil-only wedding would count
toward marriage (though why he would discuss such persons
with cohabiting couples escapes me); but if he had in mind Catholics
(as he probably did) then he is wrong to say that such persons are
truly married and are drawing on the sacramental grace of Matrimony
(though it would explain why he mentioned such persons in the same
breath with cohabiting couples, as neither are married).

Now, these two points being addressed,
and with the debacle of assertions of massive nullity supposedly
plaguing Christian marriage still reverberating, something deeper may be
emerging here. Consider,Marriage, like pregnancy, is one of those ‘either/or’ situations—either you are or you aren’t. Others’ opinions, even your own
opinion, about whether you are or aren’t, are irrelevant to whether you
are or aren’t. Marriage is an objective fact, not a subjective (however
sincere) feeling or attitude. Continuing,The pope’s most recent statements on marriage were not slips akin to getting the date of a meeting wrong, they are not hearsay shared by a prelate known for a flexible attitude toward accuracy or stories shared by relatives from Argentina, and they are not hints of his views left ambiguous by some obvious omission. Instead these latest assertions were calmly offered by the pope before a large and sympathetic audience,
with expert advisors readily at hand, in an extended manner, all of
which factors point, I think, in a consistent if disturbing direction.

And what direction is that?

This one: Pope Francis really—and I think, sincerely—believes:(A) most marriages (at least, most Christian marriages) really aren’t, deep-down, marriages
(and so the annulment process has to be sped up to dispatch of what
are, after all, probably null marriages anyway, and the consequences of
post-divorce marriages need to be softened because most people in those
second marriages probably weren’t in true marriages the first time, and
so on); and,(B) lots of things that aren’t marriages (like cohabitation and civil-only weddings between Catholics) really are, deep-down, marriages (so we need to affirm them and assure them that they enjoy the same graces as married people, and so on). That this is pope’s view can, I
suggest, be directly determined from his own words (expunged and
otherwise) and, if I am right, would explain many things, from his
favoring Cdl. Kasper and side-lining Cdl. Burke, rolling out several
problematic tribunal “reforms” in Mitis Iudex, and leaving ambiguous several crucial points that sorely needed clarity in Amoris laetitia. The irreducibly objective, ‘either/or’, nature of marriage would not sit well with someone who prefers subjective, flexible approaches that allow for ‘this and that’
responses, but, whatever problems the principle of non-contradiction
poses here, a conviction that most marriages are not marriage but lots
of non-marriages are marriage, would explain a lot.

That said, I see no way to avoid the
conclusion that a crisis (in the Greek sense of that word) over marriage
is unfolding in the Church, and it is a crisis that will, I suggest,
come to a head over matrimonial discipline and law. If so, a key fact to keep in mind will be this: No sacrament owes so much of its theology to Church discipline as marriage owes to canon law.

To conclude, and prescinding from what
other questions might face the Church under Francis, I think the
marriage crisis that he is occasioning is going to come down to whether
Church teaching on marriage, which everyone professes to honor, will be concretely and effectively protected in Church law,
or, whether the canonical categories treating marriage doctrine become
so distorted (or simply disregarded) as essentially to abandon marriage
and married life to the realm of personal opinion and individual
conscience. History has always favored the former; disaster lurks behind
the latter.

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